This thesis traces Margaret Atwood's uses of three major elements of fairy tales in her novels. Atwood creates a passive, fairy-tale-like heroine, but not for the purpose of showing how passivity wins the prince as in the traditional tale. Atwood also uses the binary system, which provides a moralistic structure in the fairy tale, to show the necessity of moving beyond its rigidity. In addition, Atwood's novels focus on transformation as the breaking of a spell. However, the spell to be broken arises out of the fairy tales themselves, which create unrealistic expectations. Thus, Atwood not only presents these fairy tale elements in a new setting, but she also changes their significance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc500262 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Peterson, Nancy J. (Nancy Jean) |
| Contributors | Kobler, J. F. (Jasper Fred), 1928-, Schlessinger, June H., Palmer, Leslie |
| Publisher | North Texas State University |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | 101 leaves, Text |
| Rights | Public, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved., Peterson, Nancy J. (Nancy Jean) |
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